[Don Greening]

[Ed Kukla] “For smaller scale archiving, will backing up to Blu-ray DVD work?”

Yes. There’s BD-R which is the same principle as DVD-R. Burn once and archive. Then there’s BD-RE which is re-writable like DVD-RW. I believe both types of Blu-ray discs come in the 2 capacities of 25 and 50 gigabytes.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[Scott Stone] “Has anyone else experienced this problem or know what we could do to solve this?”

Lots of people have had this issue. Here’s one of the many threads on the topic:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/142/862572#862572

– Don

[Don Greening]

Hi Michael,

All anyone’s saying is that Clip Browser has a built in error checking mechanism to guard against something not getting copied properly. The way the program actually duplicates everything somewhere else probably isn’t much different than the drag and drop method but it’s just this safety net of CRC checking that people are on about.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[Rob Grauert] “Is there no Compressor forum? I couldn’t find it…unless I’m going blind. “

You’re not going blind. But there’s this:

https://forums.creativecow.net/forum/compressiontechniques

– Don

[Don Greening]

[Tom Wolsky] “I must have missed it but I didn’t see anything in Bruce’s article about using Compressor for this.”

In Compressor when you choose an MPEG2 preset, in the Inspector’s Encoder tab there’s a drop down menu beside “Stream Usage.” Your choices are:

Generic
SD DVD
Blu-ray
HD DVD

Compressor is supposed to be better for encoding than Toast® so people are using Compressor then bringing the audio and video elements into Toast® for burning.

Towards the end of part 2 of Bruce’s article he states this:

“Encoding for Blu-ray
Toast allows you to use un-encoded .MOV files as the video source for your Blu-ray Video Disc, but the video must be encoded into the proper format for use in a finished Blu-ray Disc. Once you initiate the burn, Toast will encode each video clip you authored, using the settings you provided earlier in the Options panel and Settings window. (If you are using video streams already encoded to the proper specs, this step might be skipped).”

– Don

[Don Greening]

The latest version of Compressor has a setting specifically for Blu-ray encoding, either MPEG2 or H.264 which are the 2 Blu-ray standards. If you wish you can then burn your BD-R on a Mac using Toast 10 (and a 3rd party Blu-ray burner).

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/taming_the_wild_blu.html

– Don

[Don Greening]

Sometimes a crash during an MPEG2 encode is indicative of a corrupt piece of media and not necessarily a fault of the encoding program. Is the crash occurring at the same place every time? If so then the most common culprit is a render file or a picture inserted into the timeline.

If everything checks out but you’re still crashing try using Compressor as a stand alone app. for your encoding. It’s more stable than using DVD Studio Pro and also gives you more control over the encoding process.

– Don

[Don Greening]

[Steve Hirsch] “Curious… Why is there no mention of using the Sony XDCAM Transfer?”

Because Clip Browser is what’s used to copy BPAV folders in their entirety from the cards to hard drive in preparation for archiving. Clip Browser will also down-convert to SD as well as transcode/re-wrap the native EX .mp4 files into other wrappers for use with other XDCAM formats, etc.

XDCAM Transfer is for importing and at the same time “un-wrapping” the native .mp4 files and “re-wrapping” them for use in programs such as Final Cut Pro.

– Don

[Don Greening]

Hi Dan,

Welcome to Creative COW.

What computer platform are you on and which Sony programs are you using to transfer/combine your EX clips?

– Don

[Don Greening]

From the EX1 Manual:

“With the factory setting, the EVF is turned on when the LCD monitor is in its parked position or is rotated to face the subject. You can change the setting so that the EVF is always on regardless of the status of the LCD monitor, using EVF (page 103) of the LCD/VF SET menu. Change the “POWER” setting from “AUTO” to “ON”.”

That’s about the only thing that controls the EVF. You could try doing the “Reset All” thing in the EX menu or take the main battery off and then pull the memory battery too, just to see if that will change anything. Otherwise you’d better get out that rubber hammer.

– Don